WR: February 13 – February 19

Accumulation of Effort

Finally, finally, I have done what I have always wanted to do in ISM! For over a month I have been trying to meet my mentor, but one big obstacle stood in my path: the Children Hospital’s Observer Program. However, finally, I have been able to meet my mentor. Here’s what it took.

Honestly speaking, this is not a bad way to keep track of all the people who want to observe or even be mentored by specific staff members. However, the process to become registered took a very long time. I had to wait a few weeks after I contacting them because they wanted to confirm and register me as a person. Then they wanted a bunch of medical tests. While it is reasonable to have to show medical test results, it took a long time simply to gather all these records. Furthermore, some tests were required multiple times, to prove that I had kept up with my vaccinations. Doing this took at least a week and a half. After turning in everything, a few days later they had sent me a confirmation that I could be part of the program, but with one condition: I had to do a 1-hour training program to know all the rules and get my badge made. However, this wouldn’t take place at The Children’s Hospital at Plano; rather this would take place at the Children’s Hospital at Dallas. As I am actively involved in volunteering at hospitals, I already know that this meeting is essential to learning everything I need to know about the program. After completing the program, I am then able to go and freely observe underneath my mentor. However, I must record the days and times when I meet my mentor, until the end of 2017. Luckily, I already have a form for ISM that I use to keep track of those dates as well. As for the matter at the end of 2017, at that point, I must return the badge that was given to me for observing purposes and turn in my log of hours back to the volunteer department of The Children’s Hospital at Dallas. While this may sound like a lot of work, in the end, it will be worth it. The opportunity to have a mentor who is able to work actively with his student is very rare, and I am not one to let this chance go to waste.

As of the end of this week, I am finally able to take the training program. I have set it up for Monday the 20th at 20:30 a.m., which means that this following week I can visit my mentor on a regular schedule. However, last week I finally was able to meet with my mentor for work-related reasons. This past Thursday I met my mentor for four main reasons: my mentor picture, student evaluation, visit schedule, and final product. The picture was simply a way for Mr. Wysong to confirm that our mentors truly knew that they were mentoring us. After asking for a quick picture, I was able to get a selfie shot of both my mentor and me. Then my student evaluation had to be filled out by Dr. Polousky. Although I had not met him for a while, we had kept up our communication over email and thus he was able to fill out my evaluation form. After finishing that, we had gotten down to the meat of our meeting (no pun intended), the final product. I had shown him my final product proposal about my idea for the calcium/ nutrient shake. However, he said that instead of working on that, working with him on a publication would be a much better final product. He emailed some people who were working on it with him and we began trying to figure out how I might be able to help. Then we started to see how we could meet each other after my training program had been finished. However, in the end, I had decided to work it out with his assistant, Ms. Ongley, as she was in charge of his schedule.

All in all, this is the week given me a preview of what it means to be in ISM. Rather, it has shown me that all my effort that I have put into this class will finally be paid off. I greatly look forward to the weeks in which I am able to work and observe alongside my mentor.